The reinforcements from Castro-Giovanni were expected at any moment. The assailants would find themselves between two fires. The imaginations of some pictured the arrival of the Swiss also, and the Swiss soldier is the terror of the Sicilians. Hardened and implacable, those children of Helvetia, whose mercenary service under despotic governments is the shame of their fatherland, strike without distinction at everything they meet, and the _campiere_ who hesitates to display less courage and ferocity than they, is the first to fall under their bullets. Thus there was fear on both sides; but Fra Angelo triumphed over the hesitation of the brigands by a few words of rough eloquence and unparalleled temerity. After vehemently rebuking those who talked of waiting, he declared that he and his two _princes_ would go alone to meet their death under the walls of the fort, so that it might be said throughout all Sicily: "Two patricians and a monk alone tried to effect the rescue of the Piccinino. The children of the mountain looked on and did not stir. Tyranny triumphs, the people of Sicily have become dastards!" Malacarne seconded him, declaring that he too would go and be shot down. "And then," he said, "you can hunt up a leader and do what you choose." There was no further hesitation, and such men know no middle course between discouragement and unbridled frenzy. Fra Angelo had no sooner seen them start forward than he exclaimed: "The Piccinino is saved!" Michel was amazed that he could place so much confidence in courage that was so weak-kneed a moment before; but he soon found out that the Capuchin knew them better than he did. [Footnote 1: Sperlinga alone refused to do what the Sicilians wished.] [Footnote 2: However ill-advised the hospitality accorded to the French by the castle of Sperlinga may have been from the standpoint of the welfare of the country, it was admirable in its persistence and self-sacrificing spirit. Refugees and defenders died of hunger in the fortress rather than surrender.] LI CATASTROPHE The fortress of Sperlinga, formerly considered impregnable, was at this time nothing more than a majestic ruin, incapable of being defended. The town, or more properly the hamlet, below it, was inhabited by a few wretched creatures wasted by fever and poverty. Fortress and village were perched upon a cliff of grayish sandstone, and the upper works of the fortress were hollowed out of the rock.